


cross my fingers

by personaeleven



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clarke Leaves, F/M, No mention of Wick you can pretend he doesn't exist if you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5622097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/personaeleven/pseuds/personaeleven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What picking up the pieces looks like. For lieutenantwarren on tumblr for the Secret Santa rbficexchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cross my fingers

**Author's Note:**

> I took your "Bellamy and Raven start taking charge" prompt :) Guess the focus ended up falling on their relationship more than anything else, hope you don't mind!! Thanks for the inspiration these two are... the cutest :)

Raven falls asleep soon after she's set down on a bed, thanks to the morphine, and she wakes up to Bellamy sitting by her bedside.Her stomach is grumbling so she guesses she's probably slept a day or so. He looks up when she stirs, face clean-shaven and patched up but lined with exhaustion. 

"Clarke left." It's not at all specific, but in her growingly pain-addled consciousness Raven knows he's not saying Clarke just stepped out.

"What do you mean, she _left_?" She can't leave, Raven thinks, stunned. Not after everything. 

"She - couldn't take it." Again, not specific. But maybe _it_ was the best way to describe everything. Raven's not surprised; she's seen Clarke's indecision, her decisions, her regret. She's not surprised, and she hated Clarke for a time, but her eyes are still warm and watering and there's a small ball of panic welling up in her chest.

"Can _you_ take it? Are you going to leave?"

Her voice doesn't waver, but she hates how she sounds breathless. Bellamy turns to look at her, silent, and Raven - is terrified.

"Are you?"

"Blake," she snaps, with as much exasperation as she can muster, "does it look like I can go anywhere?"

She means to be cutting but it draws a laugh out of him, hoarse and unfamiliar - but a laugh, nonetheless. He leans forward, intent.

"Maybe you can't do everything you want," Bellamy says softly, and a bitter voice in Raven's head says, 'You think?' "But you could leave if you wanted to."

"Answer my question. Are you leaving?

"It depends. Do you want to?"

It takes her a long moment to understand what he's said, what he's saying, and Bellamy looks away while she processes. Raven sinks back onto the makeshift bed, trying to picture it: firewood, bullets, a deep dark forest. Quiet. Peace, perhaps, from all the politics and war but also the constant wondering of what was happening to the people they knew. 

"Not yet."

"Okay," he says simply, and sits back in his own chair. It's weird to see him sit there, Raven realises; she's never seen Bellamy just sit still. 

* * *

The sitting still doesn't last very long. There's some talk of actually going to live in Mount Weather, but it's agreed upon by everyone that they're going to need supplies from the bunker, so all the able-bodied are sent to get them.

Bellamy stubbornly deems himself in that last category, which Raven thinks is arguable but doesn't actually argue against. He's the only one that they allow to go, and only because Raven threatens not to help build anything else; Jasper and Monty and the rest are barred because the bodies of the people they knew are apparently still piled up inside.

Raven focuses on salvaging charred and broken radios the day he's away, listening for the returning bootsteps as night falls. They come eventually, and Raven has barely set her radio down when Bellamy stalks into her tent, body rigid with tension, his eyes almost glazed over. He smells of soot and sweat and she'll regret it later, but she sits him down on her bed and lets him drink the moonshine Monty sets aside for her.

"We burned them all," he finally says, tightly, and that's all he says on the matter for hours, until the lights are off and they're both curled up on her bed, backs touching. He talks quietly about the Maya, the girl Jasper had cradled as she died, about her father, about the people he'd known and how he'd dragged each bloody, irradiated body across stone and dirt and lit them on fire.

Raven has nightmares that night, and she wakes at the same time as a wild-eyed Bellamy. She's not sure whose hand finds the other's as they both try to fall asleep again, but when she wakes, her arm is cramped.

* * *

The debate over whether to move into Mount Weather intensifies, now that it's clean of bodies. On one side stands Kane and Abby and the logical argument that it's defensible, it's supplied, and it's weaponized. On the other stands everyone who's personally known someone who died in there.

Raven doesn't fall neatly into that last category but - she finds herself on that side, anyway. She thinks of herself as a practical person, but logic dictates that Monty's dimmed smiles and Jasper's stretched-out silences have to count for something. Deaths have to count for something, even if they're only temporary. Which is why she tells Kane that they won't be leaving with the group.

The commander doesn't look surprised, just more tired as he looks in between Raven and Bellamy. "When you say We, what kind of line are you imagining drawn between us? We're the same people."

"You say that when you need us," Bellamy says, voice hard. "But you don't care what we think. Mount Weather? It wasn't you that won it over, it was us."

"And we are grateful for that. We have listened. I understand pain - I understand loss," Kane says, with a somberness she's never seen before. "But survival goes beyond what a few feel."

"You don't understand, then. Denying the feelings only-" Raven looks away, curling up her fists. She doesn't know how to finish her sentence. "Survival means nothing next to loss and pain. If you want people to fight on your side and to fight for you you have to act for them."

"Fight for them?" Kane asks, eyebrows raised. "Like the two of you are doing now?"

"We don't  _enjoy_ it," Bellamy snaps. "If you all would just get off your high horses and actually-"

"What we're trying to say is that there's more than one path to survival, Kane. We can use Mount Weather's technology without being there. It's still grounder territory we'll be in." She can feel Bellamy's surprise; they've never really discussed alternatives, but Raven's been mulling over this for a long time. There are strategic reasons not to return to that place, putting aside the distastefulness of it. "Think about it," Raven says, turning to leave. "Let us know."

Monty and Jasper nod at them from across the camp when they step out, but there's nothing to report. Raven heads straight for the campfire and seats herself down. 

"I guess it's too late to run." Raven turns to look at Bellamy, sitting on the edge of the same rock. His mouth is twisted into a wry smile. "Funny thing is we'd actually have better odds."

"Probably." Raven can see it, two futures: one which is basically a reboot of their previous camp, sans Clarke and Finn and preferably situated somewhere without tribes trying to kill them; and another one with only Bellamy, constantly on the move, focusing on nothing but their own survival. Small groups move faster. "But you and I are at our best fighting for other people."

Bellamy is quiet for a long time, but it's not a quiet that alarms her. Raven just leans back and shifts closer to him, telling herself it's because the fire is dying and she's cold.

"I would fight for you," he finally says, looking down at her. She's about to retort when he adds: "Only when you need me to."

"Well-" Her voice sounds smaller than she'd like. "Same. You know that." Raven sits up and presses a quick kiss to his cheek. It feels weird and clumsy but also - comfortable, somehow, and she hops off the rock before she can see his face.

He laughs, and it's still hoarse, but it's no longer unfamiliar.

 


End file.
